Very few products ever get any kind of stress analysis performed on their components.
Today my tumble drier packed up because of a stupid stress concentration in the door hinge.
Today’s invention offers a simple way to check for such sources of built-in obsolesence.
A manufacturer would apply a small programme to all of its CAD component geometries. Even without any knowledge of the loading regimes, this would detect parts which a) have a sharp change in cross section and b) are made of some brittle material.
These two factors would be enough to show up lots of parts which might make their products malfunction, in time for them to be redesigned (I’m looking at you, Hotpoint).
Local 3-D print shops could do this scanning too, in order to be ready in advance to make replacements for all sorts of machines.
